Page 72 of The Love Hack

I said, ‘I really think you need to get checked out. Tell Zack about the spewing – you don’t have to tell him about the baby, although if he’s got any sense he’ll work it out. Ask for you health insurance card or whatever you need. Find out who you need to see. I’ll come with you, if you want. It’ll be okay.’

And then we can work out what to do about Brooke bloody MacIntryre.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I do need to talk to him. I’ve honestly just been feeling so awful and sad I haven’t been able to think straight. I’ll ask him tonight and I’ll Google how you get to see a doctor here, and we can go tomorrow.’

‘That sounds like a great plan. And maybe you and I can go out tomorrow, if you’re feeling up for it, just for a bit of a walk or whatever.’

Amelie was feeling stronger – more herself. We had a plan. That was what mattered – the rest could all wait. Relief washed through me – I’d done the right thing, coming here. I was here for my sister. And then it all went pear-shaped.

Amelie said, ‘Hang on. You said, back then, about your suspicions being correct. What suspicions, exactly?’

‘Just – you know. The letter. The colleague. It doesn’t matter really.’

‘It does matter. When did you get to New York? What’ve you been doing?’

‘Um… Couple of days ago. Just sightseeing, really.’

‘Luce. You’ve been here a couple of days and you only came to see me today? Why?’

My tongue felt like it was tying itself in knots. Lying to Mum to get Amelie’s address (I’d told her I wanted to send her flowers) had been bad enough – lying to Amelie was impossible. I was right when I’d observed that she was more herself – the take-no-prisoners Amelie was, if not back, a whole lot nearer to the surface than she’d been when I arrived at the apartment.

‘I… you know. What the advice said, about seeing if it was true, what the letter said. If it was Zack who wrote it. But it wasn’t, obviously.’

‘Why obviously?’

‘Because you trust him. He’s your husband. And you’re having a?—’

‘Lucy. Me being pregnant changes the future, but it doesn’t change the past. If Zack was cheating on me, me being up the duff wouldn’t make him uncheat. And besides, that’s not what you said when you walked in here. You came out to New York to find out if what you were worried about was true, didn’t you? Not just to see me.’

‘Well, I…’

‘And it took you two days to get in touch. Therefore, you were busy doing other stuff. Like stalking Zack. Weren’t you?’

I felt like a specimen in Biology class, pinned between two sheets of glass, a microscope trained on me. Amelie’s pregnancy was a surprise – a surprise I wanted to welcome, but wasn’t sure I could. It changed things, but it also made me realise how totally ill prepared I’d been for this encounter with her. I’d imagined coming to the flat, all guns blazing with righteous indignation, breaking the news of Zack’s infidelity to Amelie and then – what?

Now that I was actually here, I could barely recall what I’d expected to happen. That she’d react with gratitude towards me and fury towards Zack, and I’d whisk her away, rescuing her from a future with a liar and a cheat who she couldn’t possibly still love now that she knew the truth.

But now, I realised that what I wanted – perhaps even my duty, as her sister – was to protect her from the truth. Except she wasn’t going to let me do that.

‘What did you do?’ Amelie pressed remorselessly on. ‘Did you hack his phone or something?’

‘No, of course I didn’t.’ It was a denial, and an honest one – but as soon as I said it, I realised it was an admission of something else.

‘So you followed him. You figured it out, like one of your lateral thinking puzzles. My sister, the clever one. Let me guess – you went to his work and you couldn’t get in, because the security’s so tight. So you looked on his social media to see where he’d be going after work, and you went there. The Campbell, right? That’s where he’s been the past couple of Thursday nights.’

Amelie’s voice wasn’t raised, but I could see she was blazing angry. I felt helpless, ashamed and afraid – what had I started? Why the hell hadn’t I thought this through? Why hadn’t I stayed in London with my cat and left Amelie to work out for herself what was going on, and been there to pick up the pieces afterwards? Then, at least, her anger would have been directed at Zack instead of misdirected at me.

She was going to get the full story out of me, whether I liked it or not. So, I figured, at least I could try and tell it my way – try and minimise the fall-out.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’re right. That’s exactly what I did. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but it was what Adam said to do and I didn’t have a better plan. I went there and I waited for him and eventually he turned up.’

‘He turned up with a woman?’

I nodded miserably.

‘Who? Don’t tell me you don’t know, because you do.’

‘Brooke MacIntyre,’ I muttered.

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